August 31, 2025

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LIFE

Language

A man takes part in Tokyo’s Sanja Matsuri by helping to carry a "mikoshi" (portable shrine). Many Japanese festivals are open to foreign residents and tourists to participate in.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jul 19, 2025

Dancers, festivals and one very useful Japanese grammar point

By Yaeko Kabe

From Kyoto’s Gion Matsuri to Tokyo’s Sumida fireworks, Japan’s summer festivals offer history, spectacle — and a chance to learn some vocabulary.

Apple’s Craig Federighi shows off
a set of emoji at
a conference on June 13, 2016. While the small pictures have proved helpful in conveying nuance in our texts, younger people are using them less often.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jul 11, 2025

An emoji used to say it all. Now it might say too much.

By Yuko Tamura

With World Emoji Day approaching, it's a good opportunity to recognize how important these digital pictures have become.

People carry a portable shrine at Sensoji temple during the Sanja Festival in May. The festival is one of the three largest in Tokyo.

LIFE / Language

Jul 5, 2025

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of a Japanese summer?

By Yuko Tamura

Fireworks and festivals are part of the traditional Japanese summer, but what do people associate with the season these days?

An illustration of a scene from the fourth act of "Aoto Zōshi Hana no Nishiki-e" by Toyokuni Utagawa III (1862).

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 26, 2025

Take your first steps into the world of kabuki with these basic terms

By Eric Margolis

The language of Japanese theater is full of double — even triple — meanings. Knowing the terminology is the first step in understanding it.

Though Kyotoites play down their reputation for not meaning what they say, there are certain phrases you should look out for if you’re invited to a home.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 20, 2025

How to get kicked out of a Kyoto home with a smile

By Yuko Tamura

In Kyoto, a polite offer of tea might really mean “please leave.” Learn how to decode Kansai’s indirect dialect through a few phrases.

Get those umbrellas out, rainy season has arrived in much of Japan.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 12, 2025

In the forecast for June — a lot of talk about the weather

By Yaeko Kabe

From "tsuyu" to "amayadori," the current season has no shortage of vocabulary for downpours, floods and wet weather.

Reports claim that children with unusual names were being bullied at school and facing difficulties finding jobs.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 6, 2025

What’s in a name? With new guidelines, the Japanese government wants to know.

By Yuko Tamura

Japan now requires official furigana for names in the family register, aiming to limit overly creative "kira-kira" readings.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

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